Wednesday, June 7, 2017

When it comes to landing page copy, many a debate have begun over which words to choose, the context in which they're used, the order they're presented in and the amount you use to convey a message.

"Shorter is always better -- no one has the attention span to read hundreds of words!"

"Longform pages get better results!"

"Use fear to persuade readers to act!

"Forget fear, pull at their heartstrings!"

The truth is, these quote-unquote best practices are the result of gut instinct and a ton of trial and error. And what works for one industry might not work for the next. So even if so-and-so does figure out the key to high-converting real estate landing pages, that same key might not unlock the full potential of your legal landing page.

I get it, you need more granular, data-backed insights to help inform your marketing copy. Hell, we need data-backed insights.

So we did a thing.

With the help of Machine Learning model and an Emotion Lexicon, Unbounce data scientists analyzed the behavior of 74,551,421 visitors to 64,284 lead generation landing pages to reveal what kind of emotional language is effective across 10 popular industries.

They looked at eight basic emotions (anger, anticipation, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise and trust) and analyzed how copy associated with these emotions affected user behavior. Specifically, they looked at how language associated with these emotions correlated with the number of users who converted on a page. Not only that, they looked at how word count affected conversions -- helpful for marketers and copywriters alike.

4) Shoot for Short and Sweet Business Services Pages

Data showed that overall, pages with fewer than 100 words convert 50% better than those with more than 500 words.

And when you're considering words to cut or keep, keep in mind that words that evoke trust may have a positive effect on your conversion rates. The caveat? You have to be extremely trustworthy, meaning more than 8% of your language needs to imply trust -- words like "leading," "compliance," "account," "powerful" and "maintenance."

5) Spread the Joy of Higher Education

Advancing one's education is a beautiful thing, so it's no surprise that words associated with joy correlated with higher conversion rates on average in the Higher Education industry.

8) Avoid buzzwords in Business Consulting

If you work in the Business Consulting industry, you may think that words like "predict," "attainable," "achievement," "exceed" and "excel" help hype your offering, but your audience may perceive these as empty buzzwords.

The report showed that pages with more than 1.5% of copy building a sense of anticipation around the offer were correlated with pages with up to 25% lower conversion rates.

9) Joy Isn't Always a Conversion Booster

Although joy had a positive impact on conversion rates for the Higher Education industry, having too many words associated with joy is correlated with fewer conversions in the Legal and Home Improvement industries.

In Home Improvement in particular, the best converting pages tend to have less than 1% of their copy communicating joyful concepts. Words associated with joy for Home Improvement included sun, perfect, satisfied, money, pay, special, safe, happy and more.

Choose Your Words Wisely

When it comes to writing marketing copy that converts, no word should be selected without a purpose in mind. As you build your landing pages, make sure you're giving extra consideration to how each and every word will affect your target audience and influence conversions.